Not a Buddhist but I do try to empathize with a variety of traditions, including Christianity. But I think what I was expressing is probably closest to Taoism.
Sorry I meant Hinduism, where you are re-incarnated as something less regarded is you ‘fail’, and more highly regarded if you ‘succeed’
I apologize if i offended any other religions, I am no expert on them, that was my basic understanding of them. But it wasn’t so much focus on a comment of another religion as it was a comment on how difficult it is to do what you want to do, or what is actually best for us in the long term over the short term.
Which as frustrating as that is, I don’t get why you would want to ‘non-exist’, although I will admit as a Christian I do in a way want to non-exist as that I don’t want any part of me to detract from who God is. So if to exist is to be known, I do not want that. So maybe we (Christians and Hindus) are similar in that respect and I am just ignorant to their beliefs? Though I do wish to live and be used by God, for God. So in that respect, I don’t want to ‘not-exist’ at all, but exist all the more for what He made me to do!
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in post 14 you said
thus my comment, as a lot of atheists think omnipotence has to include the ability to do stupid things and defy logic, thus subconsciously justifying their own thinking.
The teaching that God is an angry old man that wants to punish humanity in revenge for eating an apple from a tree that they were not supposed to eat from is an embarrassment for any intellectual. The bible does not say that “if you eat from that tree I will kill you”, but “if you eat from this tree you will die” like you tell your child the “if you touch that high voltage cable you will die” It refers to the logical consequence of puberty, e.g. the separation of the child from it’s parent by rejecting authority over their self by becoming their own self and becoming aware of their own “nakedness”, e.g. defining their private sphere over their own body.
To perceive he end of your physical existence as terminal requires the realisation of the self in the material body. In the resurrection of Jesus inside yourself you should realise that the essence of life, e.g. the soul or will that makes us go and manifest the love for others is a transferable item that is the immortal unit of life. In eating from that tree, e.g. the tree of life that is represented in the cross you can learn to see your-self in that immortal unit and become part of it again - and learn to fear physical death no more. In “raindrop” terms it would be the realisation of the raindrop to be part of the body of water and ceasing to think only to be a drop.
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Oh yea, my fault. I didn’t mean it like that. That He doesn’t follow, or doesn’t have to follow His own laws.
I was trying to convey that I don’t think God is confined to judge laws like a man thinks He should. ie. God has no control over His ‘judging’, He is basically like a flow chart, more than a judge, where the law or consequences of the law must be sentenced and it doesn’t matter who suffers for it, but someone must suffer.
I don’t think He is constrained by the law in that sense.
Yes, I think we are on a similar page there. But I wouldn’t go as far to say that people think the "old man’ wants to punish humanity in revenge. I would bet there are very few Christians who think that.
I think that many Christians do believe though, that God HAS to punish humanity, and doesn’t want to (like He is bound), and that is why Jesus was sent, to save us from God, who has no control over the consequences/sentencing of law breakers.
Which sounds equally embarrassing as it makes God more of a robot following protocol than a compassionate, loving, just, judge, or a God who is in control.
I think those previous two paragraphs are in agreeance that concept.
Sure, I can see the fruit being that in the garden. But after that ‘sin of awareness’, there are ‘actual’ sins. Like stealing from someone. There really isn’t a ‘logical consequence’ for something like that. Other than you again are relying on yourself more than God, and it slowly hardens your heart, making it more and more difficult to have that heart of flesh which is loving, and makes you more selfish. But other than that logical consequence, God is a judge. And that judge has the right to punish you for breaking that law, but isn’t compelled to punish you. Whatever the judge decides, goes. So if that judge wishes to have mercy on you, He is surely allowed. He is not confined by the law, in that the law says, one must be punished/suffer, so one must be punished/suffer, like it is out of the judges hand. Which again treats them more as a flow chart or a robot than a God/judge.
That is a neat way of looking at it, and maybe you are right. But that seems to not fit with the Genesis story. After man sinned, he was banished from the garden as God didn’t want them to eat the tree of life, as if they could have in the sinful state. So if eating the tree is 'learning to see you-self in that immortal unit", then a sinner could not partake of it, and it wouldn’t need to be banned from access to it.
But maybe both exist, a real tree that works slightly different and the metaphor for that tree that you speak of.
sounds still logically incoherent. God is very much in control over his judgements.
Suffering is a poorly understood subject as people wonder how God could allow suffering. Nobody must suffer as suffering is a consequence of rejecting reality as nonconforming with one’s wishes. Suffering ends with the acceptance of reality. Look at the likes if Nick Vuijick or Joni Eareckson Tada and you will understand that healing, e.g the relief from suffering is in achieving mind body harmony by accepting reality as the will of God. This is how Jesus, and those who followed him, could endure what we perceive as tremendous suffering from the outside, relative to our position.
suggests to me that you want to say that God is sovereign in his judgement, e.g he is the law, rather than having to follow someone else’s law, thus free to judge as he sees fit with regards to forgiveness. But then, his forgiveness is limited by our willingness to repent. With giving us free will he has given us the ability to love and repent. It is just a question of understanding what the repentance is about. It is definitively not about Adam and Eve eating a fruit and that ever since all mankind is doomed to die as ever since the beginning of physical existence death was the end of physical existence and none was bothered as it was a normal part of the cycle as And if you feel part of this natural cycle you have no problems with that as from the dust of the earth you came and to the dust of the earth you return. Only if you “realise” your “self”, e.g. not only understand it, but also “make it” reality you will start to become mortal. This is why the fall is the poetic description of puberty as it is exactly that process, the rejection of authority over the self by doing what you were asked not to do,that makes you a self that is separate from God’s eternity. In defining your being as the material existence of your body you logically become a temporary unit that ceases to exist with the end if that physical unit. To carry on living you have to become one with the father again.
I agree. Prior to this I said “I don think…”.
That is interesting. I like the way you put that. I was trying to explain the same in this thread
Reminds me of judge dredd
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/479/591/e6a.jpg
But yes, a judge by definition, judges as they personally sees fit, and are allowed to use the law for reason to sentence as a max punishment. Like a speed limit, you can go up to it, but can also chose to drive as slow as you want (other than for safety reasons on highways or courtesy reasons).
But most good judges have a great respect for the law and its reasons, but have wisdom, and do choose what they think is best for all.
I don’t see where you get that from. His forgiveness has nothing to do with what we do or don’t do, like a gift is Ivan regardless of actions. But you also can’t give something not wanted/received, it is freely given, but is not received until it is acknowledged and accepted.
But I would say His judgement is slightly tied to our repentance in that our repentance is the goal, and the judgment is poured out to help bring us to repentance. But He also lavishes us with mercy, which also leads to repentance. But it is up to the judge to decide if He wants to help right us with mercy or wrath…which is mercy, as you said, our living right is the reality, and rejection, of that reality is suffering. So His wrath is His love and mercy, to end our suffering.
looks like they forgot to lock it 
If God hrboured wrath he would not be omniscient. He can help us with by applying justice or having mercy but wrath is not a feature only justice, love and mercy.
Why would God want to know such things?
- No. God created a universe with quantum superpositions of possible states so that the future would be open to many possibilities in order for there to be living beings who would make choices that matter rather than just imagined people in a dream, characters in a book He had written, or NPCs in a game.
- Omniscience only means that God CAN know whatever He chooses to know, just as omnipotence means God CAN do whatever He chooses to do. There really is no difference because knowledge is a form of power. It leads to inconsistencies to think that omniscience means God must know absolutely everything, just as to think that omnipotence means God must do absolutely everything. It results in a list of things which any human being can do which God cannot do, such as take risks, give privacy, give up some control to others, and even to love others.
- Only a God incapable of making anything but tools must have a purpose for everything He creates. Humans are not limited to creating things for their own ends, but can create things as an end in itself. So why would God have that limitation when we do not? Only a self-centered self-absorbed megalomaniac with no appreciation for beauty or love would equate caring for things with those things being created with purpose like a tool.
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Dear Michell,
Thanks for reopening the thread. Before answering this question, a more important question needs to be answered and that is: “What is the purpose of the physical universe?” As you have heard me say before, the founders of philosophy and science agreed that reason that God (Zeus) created the physical universe was to return the fallen to Heaven (Olympus). So, for them, the physical universe has a planned ending - restoration of all things to Heaven (Olympus). This is the basis for the apocatastasis.
The restoration of all things does not have a pre-programmed agenda of events that are to happen for each individual, just a set a ground rules with the expected outcome for all. This means that it was not presupposed that the King of Heaven, Jesus serve the role of the Messiah. Others could have severed this role, and if Jesus would have failed his tests on Earth, another would have come after Him to complete the task of defeating Lucifer. Thankfully, this did not happen.
When Jesus passed final judgement on the ruler of this world, He ensured The End of the World. That is, the world will end when all of the fallen have returned under the New Covenant. We are just 2,000 years into the New Covenant and the Earth has a useful life of 3 or so billion years…
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How does that work? I wasn’t aware of doing anything special.
Inactive but not locked, I guess? Most threads are locked three days after last reply. I guess some remain open. I wonder why?
As for not doing anything special… It wasn’t like I was digging into threads from 9 months ago. So I wonder why this one looked recent and active to me?
Seems like there is an algorithm built into opening and closing threads. They would have to archive into a different location or delete the thread altogether to prevent this.
I was posting in quite a few year old threads before I realized this. It may be based on topics and thread activity so threads closed automatically may be reactivated based on viewer/poster interest.
On the point of time travel. Stepping in and out of physical time is not time travel in the same sense that we would manufacturer a means to change time to our own will and/or desire.
The Word becoming flesh and the act of redemption could only happen before time in the sense that to God it all happened at the same time. I think that limiting God to God’s own timetable is the only way we can conceive of how God works. How God works could still be beyond our current understanding. How would we know? We do not prophecy today (well for the most part, if you agree that the canon of prophetic scripture had and end), but we do make predictions, just not as broad in scope or into the metaphysical as the ancients did. Therefore they are just limited to the physical.
I am surprised no one has changed the saying that “one day is as a thousand years” to a more modern perspective that “one second is to God as a billion years”. In order to see the beginning and end at the same instant, may be easier to understand now, than when it was originally written. Then to figure in every potential response to free will would be the task beyond simply knowing everything that happened the way it did with the way it could have.
I do not think that predestination works in tandem with the laws of nature as being consistent with all physical history. Technically God claims to know the end, from the beginning as worded, so would already know those whom would be predestined to become reconciled to God, and those who would refuse on their own free will not to be reconciled. God even knows those that would never be known after the final judgment. That God predestined some, may take into account God knew they would choose to serve God by Faith on their own. God just prevented those certain humans from never existing. God predestined that certain humans had to exist. I do not accept there were multiple Adams or Jesus, or the final anti Christ. Not that God could not do that, but there is no need to. Neither did God have to predestine there to be an Adam, Jesus, or anti-christ. God created Adam on the 6th day knowing what Adam’s choice would be, and God stepped into time as Jesus at the right moment of God’s plan. God’s plan would be implemented no matter what happened between Adam and Jesus. The anti-christ could be any one. So predestinating one particular human is not necessary.
I do not think the Greek pantheon covered all of this. Yet at the same time God used Hebrews to write about such things even if they did not understand to the full extent what they were writing down.
Is the history of the universe predetermined?
The problem with this question is that there are at lease three different universes in existence, but the question confuses them. First we have the physical universe. There seems to be two alternatives here, expansion until the universe expands into nothingness, or t6he expansi0on reverses itself until it reverts back into a tiny singularity. It seems that God does know and did plan the final end of the physical universe, but who really cares because humanity will be long dead by then.
Second, we have the history of the organic universe. We are able to follow to a remarkable extent the history of life, flora and fauna, and our world. Right now we see that the history of life on earth is not complete. Ecology and climate indicate that human beings to a larger degree hold the future of life on their hands, which indicates that God does not know its fate.
Third, we have the history of human life. Christians believe that human history will end with the Return of Jesus Christ when He will establish His Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. What remains to be seen is whether it will be established peacefully when every knee will bow and every tongues confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, or the earth will need to be cleansed of evil as it was when we are told that God purged the earth will the flood of Noah. We know that God’s kingdom will come, but not when and how. Be Ready!
Dear Roger,
I grew up in this belief, so I am awarer of it. I see you have not read my paper The End of the World, which gives another explanation to God’s plan, one that I find more logical. Why would God create a Earth with useful life of 3 billion years or so, and not to use it? Jesus came to save all of God’s children, and it will take that long for this to happen…
For the universe to be the size it is, the current solar system has to fit into the universe as a logical entity. Thus we have appearance of age.
From most ANE context of cosmology, God only effected this solar system. We know today that the actual stars, not the planets which were thought to be all stars are separate from this system. They are all systems in their own rights.
The question then; is “the heavens” the rest of the universe? If so then God logically created all at the same time but gave all ages accordingly in relationship as a whole universe.
So we are not talking about a 4 billion year old timeframe or a 14 billion year old timeframe. We are talking about a set time that God said the universe would exist. God is not limited to the logic and laws the universe was designed to operate with. It is not a given that God will wait another 3 or even more billions of years. That is why since Jesus’ time we are given heed that it could happen soon, even though it has not.
I’ve often wondered about these resurrected old threads myself, and why they occasionally pop up again. Sometimes people find their way to an old thread because of an outside search engine got them to it. I.e. Google may dig up stuff that the forum has already buried underneath the strata of more recent posts. That happened in this case as a new visitor (whose post was quickly removed by moderators) commented on the old thread, making its time stamp fresh again to be as you found it. That is what I suspect happens in at least some of these cases.
A thought, if interesting, this piqued my curiosity… I fear this simply does not follow… God’s omnipresence for instance does not simply mean he only “can” be anywhere he chooses to be; rather, it means he is everywhere. Omniscience has always traditionally been understood to mean he knows all things, not that he could know things if he so chooses, any more than omnipresence means he could be anywhere if he so chooses.
Also, another thought…
Even claiming God”s omnipotence, it is claimed sometimes, results in a laundry list of things people “can” do that God cannot… go hungry, thirst, feel powerless, feel helpless, feel hopeless, lack omnipotence… Behold the numerous powers I have that the omnipotent God lacks!
But God’s “inability” to do these things are not lacking powers, however. they are descriptions of lack of power.
If God exists categorically above us, there will be some things we “can” do (like lack knowledge) that an omniscient being cannot experience. But it is a semantic play in words to claim these things as “abilities” we posses that God lacks.Beyond this, I fail to see how omniscience can possibly God cannot give real power and control to others, or to love others.
Finally, for an omniscient being to not know the future requires that he be limited to, and exist within, the very same space-time reality as the rest of us. Every bit of Christian thought I’m familiar with says that God created this universe as something outside of and independent from himself, not that he is a being contained within it and subject to its laws, including being bound and limited by the progress of time.